I read so many different answers! Some people say it's not a big deal, but others say with open headphones you can clearly hear everything when they sit next to you.

Last month I was on vacation in Florida. One of the people I was staying with walked around with a pair of headphones that you could the lyrics too pretty clearly and loudly. Though I think its just because he had the volume up very high, I don't have any headphone experience at all so I don't know what the reality is.

Surprisingly, video reviews don't show examples of noise isolation and sound leaking. I'm not the kind of guy that blasts his volume, and I hardly ever listen to music, but a moderate volume level should do fine.

If they sit right next to you, then yeah they'll be able to hear everything, which makes the open back headphones bad for the library.

However, if your roommate is across the room from you it shouldn't be too bad.

Also, I'm not sure how easily one could show the sound leakage of the headphones. When I get my AD900's tomorrow I could attempt to do a video showing the leakage, though I'm not sure how much it'd help...

If they sit right next to you, then yeah they'll be able to hear everything, which makes the open back headphones bad for the library.

However, if your roommate is across the room from you it shouldn't be too bad.

Also, I'm not sure how easily one could show the sound leakage of the headphones. When I get my AD900's tomorrow I could attempt to do a video showing the leakage, though I'm not sure how much it'd help...

Thank you for the offer, but realistically I guess it would be hard to show sound leakage.

Since I will have a campus job for spending money, I think I will go with closed cans to be on the safe side and pick up the AD700s later if its OK.

The A700/900s look nice but it's breaking the bank, my ideal budget is $30-$70 maxing out at $100, basically just entry-level headphones with a good soundstage for gaming.

W Did anyone ever decide if any decoders were better than the other from a sonic point of view? i.e. stronger amping capabilities, lower noise floor, etc. I know for a fact that the DSS is not a noise free device as I can almost always hear the noise floor when I try it with music. For this reason I've always felt maybe the HK receivers would probably be the best option for DH, price notwithstanding.

I'm in the process of repairing an HK AVR 354 right now. If I get it working I'll report back. There seems to be some confusion because HK says it is Dolby Headphone version2-but apparently that is what the Mixamp uses so I'm not to worried. Next order of business is getting a Yamaha for Silent Cinema to try with movies, and with games just to see if it can compete lol.